Women and Masturbation

Women talk. We talk explicitly. If you don’t know this then you are probably male. We tend to get vague when we discuss masturbation. Sure, we may share a review of a vibrator or a lube that you have enjoyed but we never talk about how we enjoy solo sex. What we know statistically is that women do not masturbate as much as men. Men are expected to masturbate while women are still considered asexual until coitus. Women know this to not be the facts but we will not set the record straight.

The history behind female masturbation is both bizarre and telling of societal attitudes of women being sexual without a man.

– Women were thought to suffer insomnia and hysteria due to external stimulation of the sexual organs.

– The invention of the chastity belt was not only to limit coitus but also genital touching.

– Signs of sexual enjoyment even with your husband was considered wrong and blamed on the clitoris.

– Freud saw female masturbation childish and that as soon as a woman has experience with a real penis it should/would stop.

– John Harvey Kellogg not only performed gruesome surgeries on men and women to stop them from masturbating, he also encouraged yogurt enemas and vegetarianism to promote healthy living and avoid the heinous act.

Even today, with all the political rhetoric, the same themes continue. The issue of choice versus religious ideals is not just a question of abortion but also a revisiting of an age old debate, is a woman allowed to be sexually mature without a man? Is a woman allowed to make choices about her sexual organs or are they the domain of man? Allowing a woman to choose what happens to her body is tantamount to allowing a woman to orgasm sans a phallus. Even though most of us have no issues with men and their penis, the ability to masturbate ultimately makes a penis obsolete for the purposes of sexual release. That would definitely put a crimp on controlling women.

The disparity of woman masturbation versus male does not end in frequency. Women masturbate in a million different ways. Some of them are:

Each woman has their own way of doing it and become proficient at reaching orgasm quickly which is a tremendous aid when they have sex with a partner.

Men historically believed that the only way a woman could orgasm is if a phallus was introduced to the vagina. When they realized that the clitoris was the heart of the female orgasm, the nub was demonized and given a mind of its own; projection of how men envisioned their own members caused women more grief than anything else.

While men are expected to masturbate starting in early adolescence and throughout their life, women have only recently gained some respect in the field of masturbation. However, masturbation for women must only occur when they are adults and only because they are not with a man. The advent of the sex industry and the innovations in sex toys has only opened up the discussion on female masturbation which can only result in positive things for women. In the end, anything that promotes sexual satisfaction in either sex is a positive thing for society; happy people make happy couples which make happy communities and a happy world. And, ultimately, isn’t that the point of all of this?